"Miss Lena, we hope that you can give our offer a proper thought." A man in his early thirties said this while slightly twisting his mustache.

Although Lena felt a little troubled due to the four armed bodyguards of her unwanted guest, but she still maintained a neutral expression.

"Mister Romano, I don't think I can take this case. It will be very difficult for someone of my caliber to win. I have to go to my office soon as I have a meeting with another client shortly, so I would appreciate it if you can leave my house because I will be placing a lock on the front door."

Oliver walked into the drawing room of his mother's house and found her not so subtly trying to get rid of her guests.

'Although mom is in her forties, but when she wears that French blue shirt along with those grey pants, black librarian glasses, and black high heels, she can easily give those professional models a run for their money. I guess spending thousands of dollars on your own body for looks is worth it, huh.'

"Hey mom! Hello Mr. Romano. Seems like I came at the perfect moment as your meeting is coming to an end. I wanted to get your advice on some personal matters mom."

Although Romano was a bit angry at being interrupted so rudely, he kept his calm as he knew who the perpetrator was. It was the only child of Lena Hanover. As he was trying to get into her pants recently, he thought it would be a good idea to act like a kind adult in front of him.

'She is a damn good lawyer too. I could save so much if she started working for me.'

"Hello Oliver! I am Luca Romano. You can call me Luca. I am the owner of hotel Moonlight. You can come-"

"Oliver what are you doing here? Why aren't you attending your classes? Sorry Mr. Romano but I have to deal with a little personal problem, so I won't be entertaining you longer. Pardon my rudeness."

Lena didn't want her son to come in contact with a scum like Romano at all. So, she tried to cut them off before they could even get to know each other properly. Surprisingly, no one had paid attention to the fact that Oliver already knew Romano's last name even before he had introduced himself.

"Oh right! Mom you should quickly change those guards at the entrance. Very rude people! I had to smack them unconscious before I could come in."

Although Lena was quite surprised by the unannounced visit of her "obedient" son, which got larger with the fact that her son had managed to incapacitate professional bodyguards without much sound, her expression didn't change at all.

She gave Romano a cold glance and said, "I will help you this one time Mr. Romano, to make up for Oliver's insolence. But I hope we can talk at a later date."

Romano tipped his fedora like a gentleman. "It was lovely talking to you miss Lena. I will take my leave now."

With that Lena turned around and walked inwards into her home. Naturally, Oliver followed her, and Emily followed him.

Lena grabbed a chilled bottle of water from the fridge in the kitchen and asked, "Do you guys need anything to drink?"

Oliver plopped down on one of the chairs present by the kitchen island.

He gestured towards Emily and said, "Mom meet Emily, an actress in training."

Then he gestured towards his mother and said, "Emily, my mom a very awesome lawyer."

Lena gave Emily a scrutinizing look for a few moments. "I didn't think Oliver would bring over a girl to meet me so soon. Given his nature I thought he would only do it after getting a job."

"Mom, it is not like that. In fact, she is the reasons I came to you."

Lena sat next to him and gently pulled Emily's hand, "Don't be shy Emily. Take a seat."

Emily gave her a grateful nod and silently took a chair next to the other side of Oliver.

"So, son tell me about what is bothering you. And give me a very good reason for not attending your university classes."

Although Lena's smile was still there Oliver still felt a chill go down his spine. It felt like a prey had met its natural predator.

*Sigh*

"I met Emily during yesterday's evening. As it was raining heavily, coupled with other small factors I decided to temporarily bring her to my rented house near the university. We talked a little and I realized that she had just become homeless due to an unfair hand dealt by faith. I have more than 30,000 dollars of pocket money saved up which makes me believe that if I am prudent with my spending then I can support her. I want to help her till she becomes gets back on her own feet. So, do you have any advice for me in this situation mother?"

Lena gave Oliver a very serious look and said, "You do know that this is no simple task, right? You want to become responsible for another human before even getting a job. Have you thought about what you would do if you suddenly lack money? Money is not the only issue. She is a human with emotions. Have you thought about how complicated this all could get?"

Oliver replied back in a sincere manner, "Yes I have mother."

Lena pinched her forehead to somehow hold back the intense headache trying to overwhelm her. She knew her son better than anyone else in the world.

'Since he brought this girl named Emily directly to my house then he trusts her character a lot. At least the girl wouldn't hurt me or him. Oliver had completely witnessed the fight between me and his father during the divorce. After that incident he was very cautious when he saw new people around me. He would only allow certain people to come close to me.

And in time I have realized that almost all of the people who got rejected by Oliver have done....not so noble deeds in their life. Looking at him I can clearly feel his determination to walk till the end.

*Sigh* I hope that he doesn't run into trouble for a girl he barely knows. I do have around 5 million dollars save under his name, hopefully that will be enough to cover any unforeseen troubles. Hmph! I will absolutely not spend a single penny more than the savings under his name to help him.'

"Okay then. You can do whatever you want. But don't come crying to me if you need more money or anything like that. Though I have a good proposition for you. Interested?"

Oliver had already started smiling happily. He was really glad that he wouldn't have to lie about Emily and Ashley to his mother, like he did in his previous life.

"Sure mom. What is it?"

"I think that it would be slightly inconvenient for Emily to live together with you in your one-bedroom place. Although you could change your study into a new bedroom, I don't suggest it as it would hamper your studies. I have a better option. Let Emily stay here with me, and you can pay for her expenses."

'Yes! I was waiting for you to say that mother. Although I like her a lot, I really don't want Emily to stay at my own place as it would be very difficult to keep secrets in such a small home.'

Oliver looked at the silent Emily. He didn't see any trace of unwillingness from her face, but he still decided to ask as it was really difficult to predict what a woman is thinking.

"Emily are you okay with living my mother? I think it would be better for you. My house is a bit away from the main city as I had selected it while keeping my university in mind. Living here will easily save you a couple of hours on your daily commute to the acting classes."

Emily gave him a firm nod. Although she felt a little weird about a complete stranger and an almost complete stranger discuss about her future, she was also a bit happy on the inside as Oliver was taking her seriously.

"Awesome. Then I believe that you are going to work, right mom? We will leave shortly to buy some supplies for Emily too."

Oliver walked towards the dustbin with the carcass of a freshly eaten apple in his hand. As he was about to throw it in the dustbin, he realized that it was full of takeout packages.

"My. Dear. Mother. I see that you have not been keeping your promises. I wonder what happened to the whole cooking at home thing we talked about."

As Oliver had come unannounced Lena had completely forgotten to hide the trash bag containing the takeout packages. There was a 'Oh shit!' expression on her face for a slight moment, before she got her usual neutral expression back.

But that was enough evidence for Oliver. Even before she could give an excuse to defend her actions Oliver continued, "Mom you are an adult. I don't know how you keep that sexy figure of yours, but I can clearly see that signs of aging are catching up. How many times have I told you about eating healthy? Seriously.." *Sigh*

'Hey Orb, can you listen to me?'

The world around Oliver turned into a deep shade of blue before even a microsecond had passed. Everything had stopped moving. He could clearly see Emily's hand frozen in mid air as it was going to cover up the smile forming on her lips. He also noticed that his mother was trying to get up from her chair. From the direction her head was facing he easily deduced that she wanted to run to her SUV and use some shoddy excuse about being busy with work to delay talking about this matter.

'Pretty cool stuff!'

[Yes, I can. What do you need?]

"I want to buy a cooking skill. Do you have something cheap?"

[Do you need to just cook good food, or do you want he food to have some added effect when consumed?]

"Added effect?"

[Yes, things like temporarily increasing strength, speed, or health regeneration.]

"What is the cost of the skill with and without the effects?"

[Without the added effects you would need 1000 SVP for the best skill. The best skill with them costs 5000 SVP.]

"Hmmm, I think it is quite a steal to have the cooking skill with the effects for just 5000 SVP. I have around 118,000 SVP so I think it is okay to splurge a bit."

[Do you want to spend 5000 SVP for Arcane Cooking skill?]

"Yes."

A flash of white light covered Oliver and he felt that his head was getting stuffed with cotton. The feeling vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The flash of light disappeared soon after.

It was at this moment that Oliver realized that systems were the biggest swindlers out there...